- 07 Mar 2018 12:53
#14894326
I personally don't find the 'well-regulated militia' business a bad notion, and it may even be nice if the US followed it. Countries like Vietnam and China train virtually all their citizens--who attend college--(male and female) in military arms. A girl I use to run with is Vietnamese, about 4'10, was the sort who would cry out in anguish at the mere sight of blood; and is also trained on the use of automatic weapons fire, among various other military tactics.
There are many sound civil arguments for why a country like the US would be much better served by a citizen army, rather than a professional military caste. A supposedly democratic country might not be so quick to wage war on everyone and anyone, if military service was a civic responsibility--owing to numerous factors. Of course, such a setup is indeed incompatible with the war mongering aims and ends of US foreign policy today.
I thought of joining the military numerous times. As a naive high school graduate right before the Iraq War, I spent some time in a Marines recruiting office. I suppose I was somewhat of the mind that signing up would show that I was tough. And besides, some of my high school wrestling buddies were doing it.
Despite my personal opposition to contemporary American foreign policy, something inside me caused a repeated revisiting of the notion of joining the military through the years. One thing I have felt I could genuinely do well with is the dynamic soldiering skills which I would likely attain. Logic did prevail and prevented me from going far down that rabbit hole (provided the state of things with the wars), but I did contact recruiters multiple times through the years, based on these sorts of whims. I still haven't surpassed the maximum age for joining the National Guard, and there is even a small irrational flame in me now. As one counter argument: my brother has told me that while he enjoyed his time in the Army, he is glad he is done so that he need not risk catching a felony case if he decides to tell his boss to go fuck himself.
Military service has a lot of potential benefits, but the professional soldier caste the US now maintains is double-plus ungood, in my estimation. This makes me a little bit envious of my Vietnamese, Chinese, Swiss, etc. (though not South Koreans--their conscription system is shit) counterparts.
So, I think the founders were on to something with that well regulated militia business; it is merely too bad that their words have been so distorted, in the service of an excessively perverse agenda, which--it seems to me--largely trickles down from the profit-related interests of the arms-producing industry. It is somewhat unsurprising the founders' words have been so done on; just look at the sorts of distortions and manipulations which have long been continuously done on the purported words of Jesus Christ.
Last edited by Crantag on 07 Mar 2018 14:18, edited 3 times in total.